


Everything is Just a Little Bit Different

by phipiohsum475



Series: The English Mistake [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (Well they are implied in other universes), Drabbles, Implied Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy - Freeform, Implied Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multiverses, References to lots of AUs, crossovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 20:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6722089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phipiohsum475/pseuds/phipiohsum475
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ve lost track of the days, but I know it’s been over a year. Every time I fall asleep,” Yaxby then gave a dark, humourless chuckle, “or die, I wake up in a new universe."</p><p> </p><p>  <b>This is a series of conversations that won't leave me alone. It will not be a fully fleshed out story.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything is Just a Little Bit Different

“Where the fuck is my wife?” Ron shouted, having cornered Yaxby. Ron was still in his Auror robes, not having changed since he’d heard Hermione was missing. Harry had to admire his stance, he rarely saw Ron in action, not since Harry’d left the Auror force six months after training. But Ron had improved dramatically, he’d left a large gap of space between his wand arm and Yaxby, his feet were set, ready for battle, and his eyes never left the twitching man, his naturally tan skin unnaturally sickly and sallow.

Yaxby held his wand by his thigh, quivering and shrinking slightly under Ron’s ire. “I... I don’t know,” he stammered, “Who’s your wife?”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Ron snarled, “My wife is missing, and you’re taking the piss?”

“I’m not,” Yaxby shook his head, eyes racing between Ron and Harry. His hands shook and he almost dropped his wand.

Harry paused; it all looked very familiar; he’d seen kids, damaged and afraid, act in the exact same manner. “Ron. Mate,” he said cautiously, moving slowly towards his friend, “I think he’s telling the truth. Or extremely confused.” He set his hand on Ron’s arm. “You don’t have to let it go, but do you think you can stop pointing the wand?”

“He hexed or cursed her and I- I-“ Ron’s face nearly matched his hair in his rage.

“Let’s hear him out,” Harry was unaccustomed to being the voice of reason for Ron, but with Hermione missing, it seemed as though someone had to. “Let me.”

After another minute or two of terse silence and the thickest tension since Ron had stumbled back into the tent in their Horcrux year, Ron finally lowered his wand. Without taking his eyes off of Yaxby, he conceded to Harry, “Go on then, ask him. But I’ll curse his bollocks down his throat and out his arse if I don’t like what he has to say.”

Harry nodded; it was _something_ , he supposed. He looked at Yaxby, who reminded him a bit too strongly of the anxious child he used to be under the Dursleys’ thumb. “Yaxby, it’s Xavier, right? Xavier Yaxby?”

Yaxby nodded, and Harry noticed his tremors decrease. Harry kept using the same mild tone he used with his first year students.

“Xavier, why don’t you tell me what happened. Help us understand.”

“You wouldn’t believe me,” Yaxby whimpered, clearly desperate for _someone_ to believe him.

“Xavier,” Harry began, trying to sound sincere, not flippant, “I was raised by Muggles, until _Hagrid_ showed up to tell me I was a wizard. I was prophesised to kill Voldemort, and I died and came back to life in the process. There isn’t much you could say that I wouldn’t at least consider.”

Yaxby nodded, “You killed him, then, here? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

“Yes, of course.” Harry frowned, “What do you mean, ‘here’?”

“You don’t always defeat him. Sometimes you join him. Sometimes you die, and sometimes the war lasts for years and years.”

“Xavier, you’re gonna need to spell it out for me; sometimes I’m a bit thick,” Harry answered, trying to imagine what sort of curse or potion could make Yaxby this delusional. None of this was making any sense.

Yaxby sagged, and his tight expression softened as he made eye contact with Harry. “I’ve spent the last year skipping from universe to universe.”

“Say that again, mate?” Ron asked, his anger diffused with confusion.

“I’ve lost track of the days, but I know it’s been over a year. Every time I fall asleep,” Yaxby then gave a dark, humourless chuckle, “ _or die_ , I wake up in a new universe. Where everything is just a little bit different.”

“Different? How?” Harry asked sincerely. He’d heard wilder theories, but mostly he was trying to talk Yaxby down from his hallucinations long enough to get the man to St. Mungo’s.

“Some of its little. In one, the only difference I could tell was that Sickles were called Yennets. But most of the time, it was often bigger changes; for example, your role in the war. In some, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had never risen to power. In others, we wizards were descended from wolves and had secondary genders. Or magic didn’t exist. I’ve been in _hundreds_ of them; I can only imagine there are millions more.”

“Why’d you always know about Harry, then? You some sort of stalker?” Ron’s vitriol was straining to find a reason, any reason, to hate Yaxby.

“Harry’s an easy tell. All I have to do is open the Prophet, and I know the big basics, about the war, about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, about Potter, and Granger,” Yaxby said Hermione’s name with a shudder. “She’s the wild card.”

Ron’s arm twitched, and though his arm stayed down, his wand rose at his hip, “What did you do to Hermione?”

Yaxby turned to Ron, “She’s your wife in this universe, then? Oh, thank Oberon. She’s gone mad in most of them.  But if she’s married to you, then that makes this universe at bit safer.”

Harry cut Ron off; he could already see the Ron’s edges coming apart at Yaxby’s words. “Safer? What’re the other Hermiones like, Xavier?”

“If the Battle of Hogwarts happens in any given universe, chances are pretty high that Granger went mad from the torture. Rumour is – in those worlds at least – is that Bellatrix Lestrange poured her own soul into every _Cruciatus_ curse. Once the war was over, Granger started her own war; sometimes public, sometimes in the shadows. Either way, she systematically tracked down every pureblood without prejudice; abducting them for vicious experiments to find the scientific origins of magic. She didn’t even flinch from the screaming; she was the most clinical and heartless thing I’d ever seen,” Yaxby’s eyes grew dark, “It was one of the few times I was glad to die and wake up in a new universe entirely.”

“She’s not like that here!” Ron snapped, his knuckles white around his wand.

“Not if she married you,” Yaxby answered, as if that were obvious.

“Xavier, can you tell me what you did to our Hermione, then? When you got here?”

Yaxby had the sense to look sheepish. “When I popped up in that Muggle shop and saw her, I didn’t know which version she’d be. And the pain from our last encounter was too clear in my mind, and I didn’t want to waste the few precious seconds it would take for me to find out.  But I didn’t want to hurt her, just in case she wasn’t out for purebloods, so I used a hex that I learned a few months ago.”

“In fact,” he turned to Harry, “Your husband taught it to me; is he still an Unspeakable here?”

Harry mind halted and tripped, before he eked out, “H-husband?”

“Or boyfriend, bonded, mated, partner, whatever you are in this universe,” Yaxby waved him off as if the revelation were inconsequential. “Is he an Unspeakable here?”

Ron gave a sceptical chuckle, loosening the death grip on his wand. “I don’t know what universes you’ve been in, but Harry here’s not gay. I mean, given that he can’t seem to pull anyone, he might as well be a monk. But he’s not gay.”

Yaxby raised one brow. “I’ve been in hundreds of universes; and while I can’t claim to know what he like behind closed doors, it’s one of the few constants. There’ve only been two; my universe, where he’s bandied about as the Prophet’s most eligible bachelor, and another, in which he marries Ginny Weasley and gives his children the most unfortunate names, that they’ve not been together.” Yaxby gave a small chuckle but watched on edge for Ron and Harry’s reactions. “In the three or four hundred plus others, it’s always Potter and Malfoy; magic, heritage, or wars be damned.”

Ron’s mouth dropped open, then turned to Harry, which meant he didn’t miss the blush up Harry’s face. “Oi, mate, you’re not-“

“No! Not ever- Nothing even close! How could you think-?” Harry exclaimed, almost dropping his wand. He turned to Yaxby, with an alarmed tone, “And if you so much as mention the idea to him, Malfoy would hex your arms into snakes.”

Yaxby looked pensive. “And you’re not married to the Weasley girl?”

“No! She’s like my sister!”

“Are you the Prophet’s most eligible bachelor?”

Harry looked at the ground, and grit out between his teeth, “Against my will.”

Yaxby looked delighted, and gave a little jump before he hugged Harry. “I- this might be- oh! Can you stay with me until – It’s only- This might be my universe! I need to see the Prophet. And my family! Come with me if you want, and I’ll tell you everything!”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://phipiohsum475.tumblr.com).


End file.
